P3 - Stereotypes

Allport demonstrated effect of stereotypes on recall, however, also been found that counter-stereotypes are remembered Example - when belief "robbers carry guns" was contradicted, it was remembered accurately

Means Bartlett's research could be inaccurate and our testimony more accurate than we initially thought

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P4- Face recognition

Face recognition impacts eye wtinesses as they try and identify people from the scene

Buckhout & Regan (1988) - cross-race effectPoor at recognising faces from other races than our own

In studies about judging gender, Roberts and Bruce (1988) found masking nose made recognition harder than if eyes or mouth were masked

Thought to be good at recognising unfamiliar faces but not where we have seen itA psychologist was accused of **** by victim who had seen him on TV and confused source of familiarity

Buckhout (1974) - in 2 staged line ups, only 7 out of 52 people correctly identified criminal both times - highlights weakness in EWT in identifying criminal

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P5 - Fundamental attribution error

FA states we either use dispositional or situational attributions to explain behaviours

Eye witnesses tend to commit FAE using more dispositional explanations of crime

Assumes person is criminal in nature

Barjonet (1980) found people believed cause of car crashes were more likely to be dispositional (drivers fault) than situational (weather)

Could lead to sentencing someone for a crime which wasn't their fault

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P6 - Role of emotion

Emotional state has big impact on EWT

Yekres-Dodson law says that recall improces with arousal up to an optimum point but decreases with any further stress

Suggests moderately frightening crimes would produce best recall but in extremely scary incidents, were accurate testominy is most crucial, recall would be poor